In this solo episode, Jeff Hassemer outlines the rapid shift toward agentic search and its implications for small businesses. He explains Google’s new Search Console AI performance reports that show how often a business is quoted in AI overviews, noting that traditional click metrics are losing relevance as calls drop 12.5% while direction requests rise 21.1% in Q2. Hassemer then discusses the emergence of agentic search tools—ChatGPT’s Astra and Google’s Spark—that can autonomously book services, emphasizing the need for AI chatbots, booking links, pricing information, and JSON‑LD structured data on websites to stay visible. He promotes an affordable AI receptionist solution from Firestarter Marketing (a $100‑$150/month CRM with AI phone, SMS, and WhatsApp handling) and stresses that businesses remain legally responsible for AI actions, citing human‑review mandates in Illinois, Colorado, and California and upcoming EU‑style disclosure requirements. The episode concludes with actionable takeaways: monitor AI performance reports, adapt to new conversion signals, implement AI‑optimized site features, adopt affordable AI receptionists, and stay compliant with emerging regulations.
Chapters
Hello everybody, this is Jeff Hassemer with the AI Cookbook Podcast. We've got some really big news this week and I'm looking forward to sharing this with everybody. We are on the cusp of some pretty crazy changes in the world. Uh, with the way that AI is working and fully moving into the agentic search realm, which for small business owners means some major changes. So, um, we— number one, in local search, we, we finally get Google reporting on showing if AI is actually quoting your business. We're starting to get into the views of being able to see what's happening there. Um, Which leads into the next thing. Uh, this isn't about website traffic anymore, and that makes it more difficult to, to manage. So calls are down, directions are up, people are just getting the information from AI right away and just showing up. So we've got to figure out different ways to measure this. Um, then there we'll talk a little bit about ChatGPT's Astro release and then Spark, what that means for you and your business. And finally, AI receptionists hit price points. We'll talk a little bit about this because we've got, we've got an even cheaper option than, than what you're seeing here. And finally, using an AI tool makes you the responsible party. Not yet. So there's some things that we need to be thinking about with some regulations that come in as well. So let's start here. Google, as of August 31st, and now shows you, uh, where AI is quoting you. Um, in the Open Search Console, you'll be able to see— or in your Search Console, you'll be able to see how often your pages show up in AI overviews and AI mode on Google, right? Uh, broken out by page, country, device, date, which is pretty interesting. So there's no click data. This is just impressions at this point. Um, but I think we're gonna find that click data is not going to be as important because this isn't about people coming to your site. This is about people finding an answer from your environment and then working off of that, uh, directly. So, um, this gets to the next piece: calls are down, directions are up. So if you're worried about something going on in your Google Business Profile where your calls are down, You're not alone. Uh, the Q2 data shows that about a 12.5% decrease in calls from that environment. So that leaves us— but, um, the, the direction requests are up 21.1%. So that means that you are still getting shown, but we're just not seeing what that conversion metric looks like. And it's going to be harder and harder to connect the search metrics now to the actual conversion metrics for a while until we start to figure out our reporting. So we're getting there, um, it's just not easy to do because this is a constantly changing environment. And we're also moving into a world where the AI is doing most of the work on the internet. Um, I read an article the other day that showed that over 50% of web traffic is actually AI bots now and not humans, which brings us to our next point. We are fully heading into the agentic world. Uh, yesterday ChatGPT announced— announced Astra. Astra essentially will do things like book appointments for you, find information for you, as at the same time that it's actually doing anything that you can do on your computer now can be done by AI. That's actually happening in Google Spark as well. It's just not as widely done, and I've seen problems with Google Spark. But this steps us, as of September 3rd, into the agentic search area. Where we're going to start to see people use AI more and more for booking things like plumbers and local needs and, and pieces of, you know, appointments for them to do things around the house. What that means for you, you need an AI chatbot on your, on your system. You're probably going to need an AI receptionist. You're going to need a booking link on your website as well. Gotta have pricing on your website, and you gotta have your JSON scripts. So if AI cannot book, you know, if they have an instruction to book a plumber for Tuesday at 5 because somebody has a leak in their house, if you don't have that booking capability, you are going to get passed over by the AI search. Not a problem right now, and it's not something you need to do tomorrow. But over the next 6 months, you're going to see this more and more and more. So if you want to capture those leads and you want to be part of this, you've got to have an AI-optimized site for what's going on. That means getting some of this and doing some lead capture from the site, um, in those forms that I've mentioned. Which brings us to the next point, um, the cost of AI receptionists are finally hitting price points that you can afford. Now, just to be clear, for what we do at Firestarter Marketing, we've built a CRM tool that we charge about $100 to $150 per month that includes an AI receptionist, an AI agent on your website, SMS answers, and WhatsApp answers. So that's— that also includes your booking environment and all that kind of stuff. So If you're worried about getting a voice agent and paying for that, come see us. We can help you get this thing set up and get it rocking for you. And you're gonna start to see measurable impact within 30 days. We just, I mean, the main thing is we have to disclose that they're talking to an AI, but most people are not opposed to that at this point. They're expecting to be able to do that, especially if the AI gives good answers right from the beginning. Um, but you're going to see this, uh, the price point software very, very fast, which is good news for you as a, as a small business because now you can start to afford some really nice technology without, you know, breaking the bank on, on all that. All right, finally, one more time, um, using the AI tool makes you the responsible party, not the AI tool. This is Should have been the case from the beginning, and this should be, I think, fairly logical. But listen, using an AI tool, you can't just say the AI did that. You you are the director of the AI, just like you're a leader of a team. Your AI works for you. So there's now three states with rules: Illinois, Colorado, California requires the human review on consequential decisions. We also need to be pretty honest about when we create AI content and showing that out. That's European law, but that may come to the US at some point. But it's good practice just to say this was AI generated within that environment. But you are now fully liable in at least 3 states, and this is probably going to be pretty big across all 50 states in the, in the US. So You know, using AI doesn't, doesn't preclude you from owning a business, right? And owning the decisions that the business does. If you use an AI for your environment, that's what you'd expect. All right, so what do we take away from this week? Really simple. Open Search consoles, now you're starting to see your AI performance report and where you're getting picked up. That's great. Um, AI direction requests are, are kind of a new way to find what your conversion rate is. Calls will be down. Visits to your website may be down as well from that, from those sources, because AI is now over 50% of the internet and bots are over 50% of the internet. The— keep in mind that you need to prepare yourself for the agentic search era because it's here. It's going to get more prevalent over the next 6 months. And you're going to see if you don't have these capabilities on your site, you're just going to get passed over. Um, and then, you know, it's time to put your AI voice agent and answer your phones and, and start to use AI more extensively in your business. It's affordable now and ready to go. And then don't forget, you are the responsible party on this. Hopefully this was helpful and appreciate you guys watching. Um, Send over questions or anything else you'd like to see. We're looking forward to hearing from everybody. Thanks again. Thanks, Jeff.
